“Let’s go outside and sit for a minute,” Joy suggested. “While the chicken is grilling.” She poured a glass of wine for herself and a seltzer for Maggie. They sat on the love seat on the deck, with its view of Old Town Road. It was a glorious summer evening, and there was foot traffic and bike traffic and car traffic. Joy heard a child yell something about ice cream. She heard a car horn honk. She put her arm over the back of the love seat, cautiously, like a teenager on a first date at the movies, and she waited for Maggie to stiffen and pull away. But Maggie leaned against Joy, the way she used to, when she was young and her heart was whole and open. Joy was scared to breathe too hard.

Maggie got up to check the chicken on the grill. Her legs were so brown and skinny in her denim shorts, and her black Converse sneakers were so . . . well, it was all just so Maggie. It was too much. Joy’s heart seized. What a lot the world asked of us, when it asked us to love another human being.

What made Joy say what she said next? “So, listen,” Joy said. “Do you want to talk any more about Hugo?”

Maggie flinched. “No,” she said.

Joy had said the wrong thing, she was always saying the wrong thing. “I just want to make sure you know just how big the difference between sixteen and thirteen is. I don’t want you to feel embarrassed about . . . about what happened.”

“Nothing happened.” Maggie’s face closed up like a morning glory after sundown.

“Well, about what you may have . . .” Joy pushed forward, casting about for the right thing to say. “About what you may have expected. Hoped for.” (What had Maggie hoped for, exactly?)

“I said, I don’t want to talk about it.” Maggie stiffened. “Geez. I knew this would happen! I knew you’d bring this up, to embarrass me. I knew it. I’m going to Riley’s. Unless I’m still grounded. Am I still grounded?”

Joy studied her. “No,” she said finally. “I guess you’re not still grounded.” It was hard, deciding these things alone! She wished she had another grown-up to bounce the question off of. Was the grounding she’d given Maggie overdoing it, underdoing it, or just right? She was Goldilocks, with no guidance about which chair might fit. “But we haven’t eaten.”

“I’m not hungry,” snarled Maggie.

“We did all this work!” said Joy. “It’s almost ready!”

“I said, I’m not hungry,” said Maggie. “You can’t make me be hungry.” And with a stomp of one Converse and a curl of her lip she was gone.

Joy poured herself more wine and considered the possibility that in short order she had driven everyone away from her: Anthony, Maggie, even Bridezilla. The great alienator, that was Joy. On the way to the kitchen to pick up her cell phone she tripped over Pickles. Pickles looked up, possibly resentfully. “Not you too, Pickles,” she pleaded. “Don’t you turn on me. You’re my only hope.” Pickles raised one of her ears. She was probably wishing she had a bike so she could follow Maggie to Riley’s.